Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Fully formed

(Paul) Farmer entered Harvard med school in the fall of 84. He was only twenty-four. He told me once, "I was fully formed at twenty three." He meant, I think, that by then he had his philosophy and worldview in order, and he knew he wanted to marry them to action..."
From Mountains Beyond Mountains

How many students enter med school with an independently formed world view?
Sure, many have goals, mainly around specialty, lifestyle, etc. But in many ways the med school admissions process selects more for students who can have the world view of their institution imparted onto the next generation of doctors than for those who have their own ideas about what they want with medicine. Ideas that, in many cases, take time away from the pre-med grind in order to formulate.
I am seeing the validity of my original goals with medicine the more I get into the grey fog of action, indepenence, and socio-politics that is clinical practice. A validity that was much harder to see in the cold facts of mcq memorization that was basic sciences.

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